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Noele Gordon
Joan Noele Gordon (25 December 1919 – 14 April 1985) was an English actress and television presenter, of Scottish descent. She played the role of Meg Mortimer (originally Richardson, later Ryder) in the long-running British soap opera ''Crossroads (British TV series), Crossroads'' from 1964 to 1981, with a brief return in 1983. Early life Gordon was born on 25 December 1919, at 139 Clements Road, East Ham, Essex (now in the London Borough of Newham). Her father, who was from Scotland, was an Engine officer, engineer in the Merchant Navy (United Kingdom), Merchant Navy when she was born. She was given the middle name of Noele because she was born on Christmas Day. After attending convent school in Ilford, she was taught to dance by Maude Wells and later spent several years living in Southend-on-Sea. She made her first public appearance at the East Ham Palace and shortly afterwards, sang "Dear Little Jammy Face" at a restaurant in London. After this event, her mother and her aun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Ham
East Ham is a district of the London Borough of Newham, England, 8 miles (12.8 km) east of Charing Cross. Within the boundaries of the Historic counties of England, historic county of Essex, East Ham is identified in the London Plan as a Major Centre. The population is 76,186. History Toponymy The first known written use of the term, as 'Hamme', is in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 958, in which King Edgar granted the London Borough of Newham#Manor of Ham, Manor of Ham, which was undivided at that time, to Ealdorman Athelstan. A subsequent charter on 1037 describes a transfer of land, which has been identified with East Ham, indicating that the first division of the territory occurred between 958 and 1037. The place name derives from Old English 'hamm' and means 'a dry area of land between rivers or marshland', referring to the location of the settlement within boundaries formed by the rivers River Lea, Lea, River Thames, Thames and River Roding, Roding and their marshes. No ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Repertory Theatre
A repertory theatre, also called repertory, rep, true rep or stock, which are also called producing theatres, is a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation. United Kingdom Annie Horniman founded the first modern repertory theatre in Manchester after withdrawing her support from the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Horniman's Gaiety Theatre opened its first season in September 1908. The opening of the Gaiety was followed by the Citizens' Theatre in Glasgow, the Liverpool Repertory Theatre and the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Previously, regional theatre relied on mostly London touring ensembles. During the time the theatre was being run by Annie Horniman, a wide variety of types of plays were produced. Horniman encouraged local writers who became known as the Manchester School of playwrights. They included Allan Monkhouse, Harold Brighouse—writer of '' Hobson's Choice''—and Stanley Houghton, who wrote ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Coliseum
The London Coliseum (also known as the Coliseum Theatre) is a theatre in St Martin's Lane, City of Westminster, Westminster, built as one of London's largest and most luxurious "family" variety theatres. Opened on 24 December 1904 as the London Coliseum Theatre of Varieties, it was designed by the architect Frank Matcham for the impresario Oswald Stoll. Their ambition was to build the largest and finest music hall, described as the "people's palace of entertainment" of its age. At the time of construction, the Coliseum was one of the few theatres in Europe to provide lifts for taking patrons to the upper levels of the house, and was the first theatre in England to have a triple revolving stage, revolve installed on its stage. The theatre has 2,359 seats making it the largest theatre in London. After being used for variety shows, musical comedies, and stage plays for many years, then as a cinema screening films in the Cinerama format between 1963 and 1968, the Sadler's Wells T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Call Me Madam
''Call Me Madam'' is a Broadway musical written by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin. The musical is a satire on politics and foreign policy that spoofs postwar America's penchant for lending billions of dollars to needy countries. It centers on Sally Adams, a well-meaning but ill-informed socialite widow, who is appointed United States Ambassador to the fictional European country of "Lichtenburg". Signs in Lichtenburg are written in German, and inhabitants wear traditional Bavarian costume. While there, she charms the local gentry, especially Cosmo Constantine, while her press attaché Kenneth Gibson falls in love with Princess Maria of Lichtenburg. Background The lead character is based on Washington, D.C. hostess and Democratic Party fundraiser Perle Mesta, who was appointed Ambassador to Luxembourg in 1949. The ''Playbill'' distributed at each performance humorously noted that "neither the character of Mrs. Sally Adams nor Miss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Her Majesty's Theatre
His Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre situated in the Haymarket, London, Haymarket in the City of Westminster, London. The building, designed by Charles J. Phipps, was constructed in 1897 for the actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) at the theatre. In the early decades of the 20th century Tree produced spectacular productions of William Shakespeare, Shakespeare and other classical works, and the theatre hosted premieres by such playwrights as George Bernard Shaw, Bernard Shaw, J. M. Synge and, later, Noël Coward and J. B. Priestley. Since the First World War the wide stage has made the theatre suitable for large-scale musical productions, and His Majesty's has accordingly specialised in hosting musical theatre, musicals. It has been home to record-setting musical theatre runs such as the First World War hit ''Chu Chin Chow'' and Andrew Lloyd Webber's ''The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical), The Phantom of the Oper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brigadoon
''Brigadoon'' is a musical with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and score by Frederick Loewe. The plot features two American tourists who stumble upon Brigadoon, a mysterious Scottish village that appears for only one day every 100 years; one tourist soon falls in love with a young woman from Brigadoon. The show's song "Almost Like Being in Love" subsequently became a standard. The original production opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Broadway in 1947 and ran for 581 performances, starring David Brooks, Marion Bell, Pamela Britton, and Lee Sullivan. ''Brigadoon'' opened at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End in 1949 and ran for 685 performances; many revivals have followed. The 1954 film adaptation starred Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, while the 1966 television version starred Robert Goulet, Sally Ann Howes, and Peter Falk. Background Lyricist and book writer Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe had previously collaborated on three musicals; the first, '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Lisbon Story (musical)
''The Lisbon Story'' is a 1943 British musical composed by Harry Parr-Davies with a Book by Harold Purcell. It was produced by Edward Black. The plot is a wartime spy thriller set in Lisbon and Paris during the summer of 1942. It premiered at the Imperial Theatre, Brighton before transferring to the West End where it ran for 493 performances at the London Hippodrome from 17 June 1943 to 8 July 1944. The original cast included Patricia Burke, Albert Lieven, Jack Livesey, Noele Gordon, Reginald Long and George Hayes. The song "Pedro the Fisherman" became a particular hit and was subsequently recorded by various artists including Richard Tauber, Gracie Fields, and Julie Andrews. Film Adaptation In 1946 it was adapted into a film '' Lisbon Story'' produced by British National Films. Directed by Paul L. Stein it starred Burke, David Farrar and Walter Rilla Walter Rilla (22 August 1894 – 21 November 1980) was a German film actor of Jewish descent. Siegbert Salomon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schirmer Books
G. Schirmer, Inc. is an American classical music publishing company based in New York City, founded in 1861. The oldest active music publisher in the United States, Schirmer publishes sheet music for sale and rental, and represents some well-known European music publishers in North America, such as the Music Sales Affiliates ChesterNovello, Breitkopf & Härtel, Sikorski and many Russian and former Soviet composers' catalogs. History The company was founded in 1861 in the United States by German-born Gustav Schirmer Sr. (1829–1893), the son of a German immigrant. In 1866, his son, Rudolph Schirmer, became president of the corporation. In 1891, the company established its own engraving and printing plant. The next year it inaugurated the Schirmer's Library of Musical Classics ''The Musical Quarterly,'' the oldest academic journal on music in the U.S., was founded by Rudolph Schirmer in 1915 together with musicologist Oscar Sonneck, who edited the journal until his death in 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joyce Barbour
Joyce Barbour (27 March 1901 – 16 March 1977) was an English actress. She was the wife of the actor Richard Bird. Barbour was born in Birmingham on 27 March 1901 the daughter of Horace and Miriam Barbour, her father was an assurance clerk and later a hotel manager. She made her first stage appearance in Birmingham as a pantomime fairy in 1914. She first appeared on the London stage in 1915 at the Gaiety Theatre in the chorus. She appeared at the Duke of York's Theatre in December 1923 in '' London Calling!''.Herbert, pp. 501–502 She went to America in August 1924, and appeared on Broadway as Violet Dering in ''Havoc'' and Florence Horridge in ''Sky-High''. Her later theatre work included the original productions of Rodgers and Hart's '' Present Arms'' (1928), and ''Spring is Here'' (1929) on Broadway; and the musical '' Ever Green'' (1930) in the West End. She also played in the original production of Noël Coward's '' Words and Music'' at the Adelphi Theatre, Lond ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Let's Face It!
''Let's Face It!'' is a Musical theatre, musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The book by Herbert Fields, Herbert and Dorothy Fields is based on the 1925 play ''The Cradle Snatchers'' by Russell Medcraft and Norma Mitchell. The 1941 Broadway theatre, Broadway and 1942 West End theatre, West End productions were successful, and a film version was released in 1943. Plot Three suspicious wives, Maggie Watson, Nancy Collister and Cornelia Pigeon, invite three United States Army, Army inductees to Maggie's summer house in Southampton (town), New York, Southampton on Long Island in order to make their husbands jealous. Jerry Walker is engaged to Winnie Potter, and, because he needs the money, agrees to the plot. The wives' philandering husbands leave on yet another camping trip. Winnie, hearing of Jerry's involvement, brings in two friends (who are actually girlfriends of the other two soldiers) to pretend to be interested in the older men. The husbands actually do go fishin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. Many of his songs became Standard (music), standards noted for their witty, urbane lyrics, and many of his scores found success on Broadway theatre, Broadway and in Hollywood films. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, Porter defied his grandfather's wishes for him to practice law and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn to musical theatre. After a slow start, he began to achieve success in the 1920s, and by the 1930s he was one of the major songwriters for the Broadway musical stage. Unlike many successful Broadway composers, Porter wrote the lyrics as well as the music for his songs. After a serious horseback riding accident in 1937, Porter was left disabled and in constant pain, but he continued to work. His shows of the early 1940s did not contain the lasting hits of his best work of the 1920s and 1930s, but in 1948 he made a triumphant comeback w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Hippodrome
The Hippodrome is a building on the corner of Cranbourn Street and Charing Cross Road in the City of Westminster, London. The name was used for many different theatres and music halls, of which the London Hippodrome is one of only a few survivors. ''wikt:hippodrome, Hippodrome'' is an archaic word referring to places that host horse races and other forms of equestrian entertainment. History Hippodrome The London Hippodrome was opened in 1900. It was designed by Frank Matcham for Moss Empires chaired by Edward Moss (impresario), Edward Moss and built for £250,000 as a hippodrome for circus and variety show, variety performances. The venue gave its first show on 15 January 1900, a music hall revue entitled "Giddy Ostend" with Little Tich. The conductor was Georges Jacobi. Entry to the venue was through a bar, dressed as a ship's saloon. The performance space featured both a proscenium stage and an arena that sank into a 230 ft, 100,000 gallon water tank (about 400 tons, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
